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Circular Economy 101

Tutorial

This tutorial is now full. Space may become available, so please plan to arrive early on Tuesday, October 16, to join a queue for available seats. In the meantime, we recommend pre-registering for your second-choice tutorial.

This half-day tutorial, designed for attendees from all sectors and backgrounds and presented by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, will provide a foundational understanding of the circular economy — a model that fundamentally reimagines the traditional “take-make-waste” linear industrial model in favor of a system that designs out waste and pollution, decouples economic growth from natural resource consumption, increases resource productivity and regenerates natural systems.

The first part of the tutorial session will tour through our circular economy journey to date. From theory through to action, The Foundation team will start by explaining the guiding principles and then take participants through a series of case study examples which illustrate circular design spanning products, business models, and system level innovations.

To some, the circular economy concept can feel academic and detached from reality. The second part of the session will take a more in depth look at how we can 'sell in' and convince stakeholders to invest in circular economy initiatives. Much of the work concentrating on the circular economy to date has centred on deep analysis of the broader economic opportunity. Translating the theory into practical opportunities for colleagues working at the coal-face of operations, or executives faced with competing priorities, can present a critical challenge.

Fortunately, the circular economy is a big idea with many entry points. Significant work has already been completed by many diverse organisations of all sizes to demonstrate that the theoretical upside can be translated to real commercial opportunities today. Some of these organisations are already taking giant leaps towards circular economy models.

Dragon Rouge, an award-winning global creative agency and CE100 member, spoke with several of those leading organisations to understand what is working, and launched a report on the topic. During the second part of the session, The Foundation Team and Dragon Rouge representatives will distil insight on how you can effectively 'sell' the circular economy into different parts of your organisation.

Regenerative Futures Lab: Imagining the Unimaginable

The more we understand planetary life cycles of birth, growth, death, decay, and regeneration, the clearer it becomes that human civilization is dependent on and inseparable from them. Given the countless unintended consequences and existential threats we face, it’s easy to catastrophize the future.

Is it possible to reverse the impacts of these threats? For many of us, this is an unthinkable thought. Yet the role of foresight tools are to help us radically reimagine the future. Which begs the question: What paradigms and assumptions are informing foresight processes and our understanding of sustainability?

To date, the field of sustainability has been largely dominated by a mechanistic interpretations of natural resources, assets, and the commons, tacitly informed by models of competition and scarcity. How might we re-envision these - and explore potential futures - from a regenerative perspective?

This interactive workshop reframes how shared assets are imagined. Are they perpetually scarce (fixed and diminishing) or potentially abundant (living and regenerative)? How can we invest in assets - and communities - to increase their capacities and capabilities over time?

Pre-register to ensure access to your first choice of tutorial. Select “Already Registered?” here and enter your email address and confirmation number to log in. Then, click the “Modify” button to add a tutorial to your registration.

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Economy First: Scaling Investment in Circularity

Breakout

Circular economy solutions will only scale when the economics are sound, and a divergence from the existing linear model will require new and innovating financing. Hear from investors about what it will take to finance circularity. And learn about the market signals that will guide investment opportunities.

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Built Positive: Creating Positive Impact from Molecule to Metropolis

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Examine the opportunity for circularity in the built environment, discuss the implications of materials choices and explore how circular economy practices can be scaled up from the molecule to the metropolis.

Through case studies from their own work at the product, asset and local government level, panelists will challenge the audience to think about potential circular interventions in their own work, what roles or collaborators are needed to make them happen, and how to initiate those conversations.

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Composting at Scale

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In urban areas, disposing of food scraps is often the only touchpoint that residents have with resource management — a tactile, visceral experience of environmental engagement. However, organic waste in landfills contributes to 5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, so industrial-scale composting is crucial. This session will explore the shifting flow of biological materials in cities to regenerate soil and community while scaling the industrial management of organic waste.

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A Thoughtful Conversation about the War on Plastic

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Is plastic the problem, or plastic waste? Is it all plastics, or just some? Is it all products, or only a few? As a global war on plastic escalates, more companies and cities are being asked to take actions to limit its use and waste. However, plastic is ubiquitous and cheap and continues to play a vital role in ensuring health, safety and product delivery and longevity. This session will break down these key issues and explore the conflicting perspectives and priorities when it comes to navigating the plastic challenge.

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The Circular City

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The concept of the circular economy offers a framework through which city governments and policymakers, urban planners and designers, businesses and individuals can rethink urban systems — and begin to close the loop on the flow of materials. As cities embark on the transition towards a circular economy, information and digital technology will play a crucial role in helping them address these challenges. Data forms part of the “connective tissue” linking urban systems together — from the movement of traffic, to the health of buildings, to how citizens can produce and consume energy. This session will explore the role of data in transforming urban life and building long-term prosperity, resource sufficiency, economic viability and well-being in a circular city.

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Innovation in Practice: Building a Circular Economy in Construction

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Learn from experts turning ideas into action as they discuss successfully integrating circular strategies to optimize waste stream management, product manufacturing, and industry engagement to reduce the carbon impact of construction. Explore approaches that promise to herald new innovations in the built environment — helping to prevent the "outsourcing of pollution" by reinventing the market for typically carbon-intensive products and processes in the building industry.

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Consumers demand an end to plastic straws, cities ban single-use bags and companies voluntarily move towards circularity. What are the most effective drivers of systems change? This session will explore the various levers of change, including policy, consumer pressure, corporate advocacy and partnerships, as well as the interplay of these factors and the impact of collaboration amongst industry partners to meet circular economy goals.

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Circular Water: Strategies for a Resource-Constrained World

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The impacts of drought, population growth, aging infrastructure, climate change, and other challenges threaten the long-term availability of water and by 2030, the world’s demand for fresh water is projected to outstrip supply by 40 percent. For companies, it's increasingly difficult to access the water they need to meet growing customer demands, local governments are finding they’ve under-invested in water strategies or allowed existing structures to deteriorate. These stakeholders also often find themselves competing for access to water.

In this context, businesses continue to set targets at the corporate level but most have not yet been able to operationalize those goals at the local-level. A 2017 survey by GreenBiz and Ecolab showed that although 75 percent of companies have water-related targets, most do not integrate water into their planning processes, and 82 percent lack the tools and strategies to turn water data into action.

In this session, hear from companies and cities tackling their water management with a circular approach. Learn about the tools and tactics they use to establish and operationalize circular water strategies that are economically beneficial, environmentally sustainable and socially equitable.

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Value Chain Engagement for a Circular Plastic Supply Chain

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Circularity cannot be achieved in a silo; a systemic shift requires engagement across the entire value chain. Brands, manufacturers, municipalities and materials recovery facilities/processors each face different challenges in scaling circularity, so cross-functional communication will be key to understanding and motivating them. This session will bring together key stakeholders to discuss what it will take to achieve a truly circular plastic supply chain.

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Meaningful Metrics for New Models

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Many companies are enthusiastic about the potential of circular business models, but how do they assess the benefits of new business models, such as product takeback or leasing? As industries innovate, they will need a common framework for evaluating the impacts and making credible claims. This conversation will focus on work being done to establish methods for measuring the environmental and social impact of circular business models.

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Optimizing Water Infrastructure in the Built Environment

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To efficiently manage water in the built environment, we must think beyond the boundaries of buildings. This session will discuss some of the most innovative and regenerative water infrastructure projects that design for abundance, take the burden off of aging infrastructure and reimagine the flow of water in cities.

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Turning Carbon into Value

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This session will explore the burgeoning market for carbon capture technologies that transform atmospheric CO2 into materials that can be used in the production of cement, plastics — and more. This dialogue isn't just about drawing down emissions, it's about creating entirely new revenue opportunities.

Guru Lunch: Healthy and Circular? Design and Materials Management

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Join Anellotech’s Chief Science Officer Chuck Sorensen for a thought-provoking discussion about the challenges that renewable bio-based materials face to displace today’s petroleum-based plastics supply chain. To reduce product’s carbon footprints as much as possible, brand owners and technology innovators need to work together to develop creative approaches to change the paradigm and compete effectively against the massive scale of the petrochemical industry. Chuck brings an interesting perspective to the conversation, having spent a significant amount of time in his career developing process technologies for one of the world’s largest oil companies, then with one of the world’s most innovative materials companies developing material and product solutions. He now works for Anellotech, a sustainable technology company focused on commercializing innovative production of cost-competitive renewable chemicals and fuels from non-food biomass.

About VERGE Guru Lunches: Join like minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

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Guru Lunch: Biomimicry in Practice

Lunch

The problem of getting people with different perspectives to talk to eachother is just as true in design as it is in politics. Designers stopped taking biology in college (or even high school). Engineers specialize early and may not take any further biology (or chemistry). And if nature can show us breakthrough structures, patterns, and concepts in energy, transportation, water systems, or textiles, who will be the few that know how to use this lens? Join Biomimicry Institute ED Beth Rattner in a conversation about how the Institute is helping entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs) find the right biological models and then make next-generation circular and regenerative products.

About VERGE Guru Lunches: Join like minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

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Join Billy Grayson, Executive Director, Center for Sustainability and Economic Performance at The Urban Land Institute (ULI) for a discussion of emerging technologies that leading real estate companies are piloting TODAY that will likely be rolled out across portfolios soon. We will discuss some of the most promising near-term technologies in smart buildings, on-site energy production and storage, and advanced building materials.

About VERGE Guru Lunches: Join like minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

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Guru Lunch: Reducing Food Waste Through Packaging

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In the U.S., we waste 63 million tons of food annually at a cost of $218 billion. Join ReFED to explore emerging packaging solutions designed to reduce food waste by prolonging product freshness and slowing spoilage of perishable foods. Collectively, these solutions have the potential to prevent 72,000 tons of food waste annually while creating $167 million in economic value, sparking significant interst from food manufacturers, retailers, entrepreneurs, and investors.

About VERGE Guru Lunches: Join like minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

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Guru Lunch: Stacking Benefits — Innovation in Solar and Agriculture

Lunch

Learn about the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s InSPIRE study into low-impact solar development and pollinator-friendly solar from two leaders involved in the work. Meet previous VERGE presenter Rob Davis of the Center for Pollinators in Energy at Fresh Energy and Organic Valley’s Stanley Minnick and discuss the NREL study’s results to date and opportunities for new partners.

About VERGE Guru Lunches: Join like minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

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Cultivating and Scaling a Market for Regenerative Agriculture

Breakout

Regenerative agriculture — a system of farming principles that rebuilds natural ecosystems, draws down carbon dioxide emissions and provides long-term economic stability for farmers and ranchers — has the potential to sequester 23.2 gigatons of CO2 by 2050 and to harvest an estimated $1.9 trillion in operational savings. It's a question of disrupting the conventional practices that dominate the food and fiber industries. In this session, we'll hear about the investments regenerative ag pioneers are making to cultivate this promising approach.

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Biomimicry in Cities: Fireside Chat with Janine Benyus

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How can we design cities to function in harmony with the ecosystems they inhabit? By using a systemic, design-thinking approach, this session will explore the potential for cities to seek inspiration not only from nature as a whole but also from the specific environment in which they function.

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From Start to Finish to Start: Strategies for Extending Apparel Lifecycles

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As product lifespans shrink across industries, some companies are exploring innovative approaches to capitalizing on a product's embedded quality through reuse cycles. From partnerships and industry-wide collaboration, to reimagining the end of a product's life as the start of a new one, to leveraging connectivity and technology to bridge the essential communication gap between stakeholders— this panel will provide a prototype for powering circularity at scale, with triple-bottom line impact.

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The Second Life of EV Batteries: Reuse & Recycling

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The first wave of electric vehicle batteries are just beginning to reach the end of their useful life on the roads, and are now being tested out to store energy for buildings and the power grid. Automakers, utilities, energy storage service providers and battery manufacturers are trying to figure out how to develop a supply chain and system that enables affordable reuse and recycling of electric vehicle batteries at scale. What are the challenges and opportunities for this circular economy of energy storage?

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Safe & Circular: Rethinking Design and Product Development

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Circular design doesn’t happen in hindsight: designers must integrate ideas around the circular economy from the inception of the product design process through to the end of a product’s useful life, ensuring true circularity for the materials, components and systems involved. Materials lie at the heart of this process: safe, circular materials choices form the foundation of successful circular design, but not all materials are safe enough or suitable for a circular economy.

Join this interactive session with Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and Ellen MacArthur Foundation to explore ways to reframe the material health challenge as an opportunity for successful circular design, ensuring your work promotes a safe, circular economy.

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Forging Links Across the Circular Supply Chain

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While the circular economy creates and captures new value for businesses, it also brings new challenges and complexities across material supply chains. This session will bring together practitioners from across sectors to explore the idea of a "circular supply chain" and identify how companies can help establish transparency and embed sustainability across all links.

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Getting your Company to Zero Waste

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What will it take to achieve "zero waste" for your company, and what does it mean to get there? This session will explore differing approaches, pathways and tactics to curbing waste production. Hear from experts at Wegmans, HP Inc. and Rubicon Global on how they have defined, navigated and achieved their zero waste goals.

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Designing a Circular Food System

Breakout

How might we eliminate packaging from food delivery? How might we make the global impacts of food products clear and meaningful to people? How might we get excess fresh and healthy food to people who need it?

These are just a few of the challenges being addressed through the IDEO circular economy CoLab. Designed as a collaboration platform for solving complex global issues, CoLab invites major stakeholders across a given value system to come together and co-design new pathways forward. Through a series of intensive design and prototyping sprints; the circular economy CoLab takes a human lens on business opportunities aimed to have positive systemic impact. Please join IDEO, McDonald’s Corporation and Danone North America as they discuss what was tried, learned, designed… and where things are headed.

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Operation Take-Back: Models, Markets & Reverse Logistics

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What does it take to successfully reclaim a product and ensure the transition to its next life rather than an end of life? As companies begin to rethink waste, product take-back programs are an increasingly strategic approach for capturing previously untapped value. This session will explore these new business models, identify the market incentives and regulations that could help inspire higher rates of product returns and discuss the challenges of implementation from the economics of reverse logistics to engaging customers as partners in enabling circularity.